The corruption of my wife is now complete!

She's started her own blog!

Need suggestions

Okay, using Canton, OH as a center-point, I need ideas on where to go for a long weekend with the family. Must be under 4.5 hour drive. Ideas?

Book 7 Party

The waiting is over and at the stroke of midnight this morning, the new and final Harry Potter book was released to the world. As we had done two years ago, the whole crew decided to meet up in Hudson, OH for the last Harry Potter Extravaganza. According to one media outlets estimate, there were over 12,000 people who had flocked to the small Western Reserve community. It was fun, but kinda stunk because you couldn't do anything really besides walk around and people watch. The lines to get into the stores to do any of the activities were way long, and the crowds were not always happy about it either. The bulk of the event was held off of Main Street at the First and Main area of downtown. Trying to get through the Main Street crowd was just insanity. In the end though, the kids had a blast, I got to see an old friend that I hadn't seen since last time and Denise was able to get the book at a Wal-Mart that stayed open late just to sell it. I have to admit, I stole the book on the way home and read the last part of it to find out what happens. My lips are sealed!

What a weekend.

Trees and sky
Originally uploaded by Macian.

After all the fun and hard work of getting ready for Molly's First Communion and party, this weekend was much needed relaxation. Friday night, Denise and I had a chance to go out and just do nothing really. Grabbed a sandwich at the coffee shop, stopped by her bosses house to pick up some paperwork and then headed home. Yesterday was free comic book day! Always something fun to do with that! Then today we went a bought a new camera bag. It's actually a back pack camera bag with enough room for my camera, lens, camcorder and even my laptop. This bag will come in handy when we head out to Boston for the Admin2007 training. Denise has her heart set on heading up to Salem, which I think can be accomplished by using the trains.
Here's a cool shopping tip, if you're at Best Buy and see something that you want to buy but it has stains on it, say something. The camera bag had what looked like marker marks on it, and they knocked 30% off.
Well, that's it for now. Off to enjoy one last cigar for the weekend, and prepare for more fun in the exciting world of Domino Administration!

Molly's First Communion

IMG_1173
Originally uploaded by Macian.

What a fantastic day! Today, Molly had made her First Communion in the Church, and what a day it turned out to be. Luckily after all of the rain and weird weather, it all turned out nice, sunny and warm! Everyone that came to her party afterwards really seemed to enjoy themselves. Be sure to check out the pics on Flickr!

Thanks to all of those that were able to show up!

April 25th

Then:
And Now:

Time passes by too quickly but with every day that does, my love for her grows. She is my partner and best friend in all aspects.
Happy Anniversary babe.

I don't remember it being that big of a production....

When I was 7 and in the second grade, I made had my First Communion. Not that it's not a big deal, but at the time it was fun because we all had to be in our suits for the boys and the little white dresses for the girls and our family came over after Mass and we had a get together.
Now the tables are turned.
My daughter is 7 and in the second grade and making her First Communion this weekend and the wife and I are going nuts! Trying to get the house cleaned, getting bathrooms painted, cleaning the garage, figuring out how I am going to feed all these people, how I'm going get the tables and chairs I am borrowing over to the house, hoping the weather is going to stay nice, making sure number 1 son is cleaning the "Sparky-bombs" off the lawn and keeping it cut, planting flowers in the flower boxes. Oy vey! Wait...I got my faiths mixed up there for a second. This of course is the reason why I have not been a good blogger lately and posting any content. For the past week and a half, this is how we have been spending out existence, (and money). And after Sunday and the clean-up, there will be a huge sigh of relief for the wife and I. Oh well, the kids worth it ;-)

Wicked cool night shots

Finally, the clouds have cleared and the weather is starting to look and act more like spring. So tonight I ventured outside about 9:45 with my new camera and was able to get some cool shots like this one

Once again, photography is phun!

Catching up on stuff

I know it's been a relative blog drought for me lately. Seems like with everything that has been going on between DST, general stuff going on at work and trying not to be sick, the writing bug hasn't hit me in a while. That is until tonight because I got my taxes done and filed away with the proper state and federal governments, so my brain now allows me to scratch off that final "gotta get that thing done" from my mental list. At least todays list.

So let's start off with the Notes 8 Public Beta. Wow. So far, it's everything that it was hyped up to be. I did find a couple of issues. First, the RSS reader in the right side won't allow me to download any subscriptions. Not sure why. I did a quick scan of the beta forum and saw a few other people had that issue as well. If I find anything solid on it, I will post it here. Also found out that with the spreadsheet application that was installed, I can't open our companies expense reports. They are written in Excel and have password protected cells on there. Hopefully there is a way to work around that. Outside of that, I haven't had much of a chance to play with the "standard" client. Hopefully will get a chance to that this week or next. Still getting use to File-Application compared to File-Database. That's going to take a while to break. Well done IBM! This really is a leap forward with the product line. A co-worker was looking over my shoulder today as I was working with it and he was amazed.

And before we get too far off the topic of DST, I may have found an issue with the agents that ran. My director called me into his office today to show me calendar entries in his mail file. It seems that entries that had a name listed in the chair field, no longer have a name listed there. So far he is the only one that has reported this and the entries that are messed up are repeating meetings that have been in his mail file for a while. The same meetings last week have a chair listed, but this week the name is gone. Still waiting to hear back on my open PMR about that. Will post what I find out of course.

So while the beta fun and possible DST problem going on, I have also been fighting the latest bug that has been circling around the office. This time, it looks like bronchitis. At least that's what the doctor thinks it may be. Absolutely floored me yesterday. But with enough drugs, I was able to wonder into the office today. Would have much rather of stayed at home to watch Deep Space Nine again today, but that wasn't in the cards.

Also, did hear some good news from my wife today. After all her hard work with AVON, she has made Unit Leader, which is what she has been working hard to achieve since starting last fall. I'm very happy for her and she is walking on air!

I did get a chance on Sunday to play with my new camera and boy do I love that thing! Check out my Flickr if you want to see the pics. It just amazes me that 20 years ago, I was running around with my regular old SLR shooting multiple rolls of black and white film trying to become the next Ansel Adams, come home at night to develop them only to find out that things didn't come out the way I wanted them too. Now all I have to do it frame the shot, then look at the back of the camera to see if I like it. If I want to make changes, do it live, retake the shot and adjust it until I get it the way I want it. Technology is cool.

That's it for now, I can tell the blog ramble is beginning. Plus, Jericho is starting too.

Blah!

I am tired of being sick! I got a cold last week that seemed to get better before we went to Michigan. That is until I got to Detroit and was around smokers, (my parents), and then stayed in a dry hotel room. I smoked for 20 years and didn't get this that bad. A couple days around my folks and boom! That led to Monday and the onset of some nasty bronchitis. Yesterday I went to the doctor and got a prescription for some anti-biotics. Side note. The Giant Eagle chain of grocery stores has a really good deal going on now. They have counted Wal-Mart's $4 prescriptions, but have gone one step further. They are giving certain ones away for free during the cold and flu season. No joke, check this out! If stores are able to do this now, why weren't they doing this a long time ago?
I tried to do some work from home yesterday, but didn't get much done. I am working again from home today and actually getting stuff done. It really amazes me how much more work I can actually get done from home and not while I am in the office. I've already opened a PMR with Lotus Support about documents that were deleted from users mail file in a clustered environment returning after a couple of weeks, and had another ticket with BlackBerry on another issue. I've documented some SOP's for work, and returned a couple of phone calls.
Okay, maybe getting sick isn't that bad after all.

Sunsets and Sundays

If there is one thing I really love about where I am living now, it's the fact that I have a fantastic seat every night to watch the sun go down. In my younger days, I use to go to the "Overlook" in the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. I would go out there, take my walkman, listen to some tunes, and watch the sun go down. It always seemed like I would do that on a Sunday too. Not sure why. Probably because Sunday nights have always been the time when most people don't plan anything else except just taking it easy.
I'm blogging from the back porch right now and I'm really starting to see that things are looking more like fall. I went for a short trip over to Zoar a couple of hours ago and got some shots around the town. Check out my flickr for more of that. As for now, the sun has just gone beneath the hill, the last dull rays are striking the side of the house, and my brain is starting to yell at me that another long week awaits. At least it will be different. Tuesday I fly to Vegas for a vendor sponsored security conference. Wouldn't be so bad except I hate flying. Oh well, that's life in the big leagues I guess.
Now, to enjoy the last few rays of the day. 

Huzzah!

"Molly the Hobbit leads the quest!"

Wow! What a weekend, and boy did it go by fast. Friday night started off with Denise and I actually having a "date night". We finally got to go see Clerks II. I've been a big fan of Kevin Smith's movies and loved every single one of them. (Dogma is my all time favorite! I think you have to be Catholic to get a lot of the movie though) Outside of the movie, the nice part about Friday night was that we actually got to go and see a movie by ourselves without the kids. The joy!

Saturday we spent helping out friend Jen at the Renaissance Faire that was held at the Western Reserve Masonic Community in Medina, OH. Jen has been making costumes and period wear for some time now, and in my opinion, does a fantastic job. She puts a lot of work and a lot of care into what she does. If your interested, check out her website! You may find something you like! This was Jen's first time at having a booth at a festival and it really worked out great for her. She passed out a lot of cards and made some great contacts for future business. She was really nervous though going into Saturday, but by the afternoon she really fell into a groove and her and Denise were doing their best to work the tent. The kids had a great time at the festival. Alex has been wanting to see Knights joust, and they did not let him down! The two guys they had there REALLY went at it hard. Molly loved listening to the singers that roamed around the grounds. All in all, it was a fantastic day. But the weekend wasn't over there.

After mass today we went up to our favorite restaurant, Skyline, and had lunch with Kev, Shannon, Thing1 and Thing2. It's always great getting together with those guys. The kids had a great time talking to each other and we had a chance to catch up. Sure, we talk online all the time, but its much better face to face.

Well, now it's Sunday night and the Simpsons are on. Fun time is over and back to the reality of work tomorrow morning. Don't quote me on this, but a little bird told me that Notes/Domino 7.0.2 SHOULD be out this week. I hope so since it's September, and the month is over this week. Of course it will probably come out at the end of the week, and I'll have no time to play with it the following week since I'm going to a conference in Vegas. Never been to Vegas before, so this should be interesting ;-)

We went and did it

The Mrs. and I have been talking about doing this for sometime and we went ahead and did it today. We went down to Wal-Mart and picked up a matching pair of of Schwinn bikes! Okay, it was a little pricey buying two bikes at the same time, but I look at it this way. I quit smoking cigarettes back in February after Lotusphere. Since then, (according to the Nicoderm website), I have saved $877 by not smoking. Buying two bikes is just a drop in the bucket.

Priceless

900 + miles worth of gas - $140
Meals at resturants for the week - $250
Hotel rooms along the way - $350

Fun with the wife and kids on summer vacation - Priceless


 

Baby-Daddy Day

I've got a cool wife. For a while now, I have been kicking around the idea of getting a satellite radio. The price on them have been dropping, and for having it on the home TV with our Dish Network, it's nice just to have music and no other crap. Well, for Fathers Day my wife and kids got me an XACT car kit...and I love it! I've been switching between the 80's channel, the 1st wave alternative station, and Howard 100 all day! I actually get to listen to Howard Stern on my morning commute again! I also broke down and got the home kit, so I can smuggle it into work and listen there. Sweet!

It's funny, I read Gregg's post it it last night, and then I got one this morning! This thing is better than an iPod. I might not buy that iPod video after all. Okay, $12.95 a month for this thing may seem a little steep after a while, but, I'm not spending to average of $6 a day on smokes ;-)

I love my wife and kids. They are just too cool!

7 years

From hereTo here

7 years goes by just too dang fast.
Happy Birthday Peanut. I love you.

A funny thing happened on the way to Detroit...

As I am sure most of you know, going on a family get-a-away is no small task. You have to make sure that the dog is taken care of, the kids have all their "stuff" packed, and that you and the wife are mentally prepared to spend several hours in a moving vehicle with each other.
My plan was to get an early start for Detroit to spend the weekend with my family, and it was off to a pretty smooth start. After about 90 minutes in the car, I get a call on the BlackBerry. "Andy, we got a server down." Great. Can't get out of town without SOMETHING breaking. Last time it was the van and this time, it's a server. I told them to reboot it, and let's see what happens. I had a funny feeling earlier in the week that there may have been a hardware problem on the server. After about 20 minutes, I hear my BlackBerry buzz. Server went down again. Okay, now I start making phone calls. As I am driving 70 MPH west on our lovely Ohio Turnpike, I am explaining to my backup how easy it is, (which it really is), to swap out a Domino server, as long as you have the core files available. So, after about an hour or so of phone calls, and me trying to monitor things with Idokorro, (which I am still testing), the server was back up and running.
With that behind me, I had only one primary task for the day. That was to eat Coneys. Which I did, and they were good. It really amazes me that no where on the planet, at least not that I know of, sells coneys like they do in Detroit. It seems like most major cities have some sort of dish that you can't get anywhere else. If you ever visit Detroit, make sure you stop into one of these places. They are really worth the visit.
Thanks to all who had posted about the server upgrade to 7. Saturday is the big day, so I have some more testing and documentation to do before then. Let's hope it's a boring week.

What a weekend

Okay, this weekend had it's highs and lows. Here's a quick breakdown, I use the term loosely after Friday, of what happened.

The Good:

• Had fun with Denise and the kids with our short Pittsburgh adventure.
• Got to go shopping at Ikea. Man, that place is cool.
• Got to see "Over the Hedge". That was one REALLY funny movie.
• AAA road side assistance is a must. Especially with the 100 mile radius coverage.
• The kids did great in school this past year.
• Watching Molly with her Brownie troop in the parade yesterday. She got to carry her troops flag.

The Bad

• My one Domino server that has been running for 1 year and 1 week without ANY downtime, crashed over the weekend. It's important to note that it was a problem with Win2K and NOT Domino.
• The van and all it's breakdown fun.
• The fact that our central air broke down at home as well. (90 degree+ heat and humidity this week!)
• Eastern Ohio has some really bad dead zones for cell phone coverage. Damn beautiful hilly terrain! Always getting in the way of line of sight communications!

All in all, a crazy, but fun weekend.

I hate Sunday nights..

Because that means that my Monday morning fun is less then 12 hours away.

Had a great weekend. Started off yesterday with Molly's 5-1 win in soccer, (go team red!). Had lunch as planned with Kev and Shannon which is always great to get together with them. Then, free comic book day! Stopped by two comic stores actually. Walked away with most of the assortment that they offered for the event as well as buying a couple of other one. One of the stores had a .10 cent bin of Disney and Archie comics. Molly walked away with an arm full. Alex doesn't really get into comics that much, just video games. I purchased Justice #1 from DC comics. Awesome artwork, and what looks like a great story too. I have to go find the other ones since this came out last year. Also picked up a .25 cent GI Joe Elite Force. Back in the 80's, I was really into GI Joe when Marvel was running the comic line. I stopped after a while because the story lines got pretty lame with all of the Hasboro tie-in for toys. Then in the early 90's, publisher Devils Due picked up the line and brought the characters back. Awesome. But, being a grown up got in the way again and I stopped buying it. Today, we spent cutting lawn and doing a little bit of shopping, and just plain spending time as a family.
Well, Family Guy is starting, so it's off to do the Sunday night thing.

Time keeps on slippin'....

Wow. It's weird to ponder the passage of time. Today is Denise and I's 8th wedding anniversary. It's also the 9th anniversary of our first date. Denise and I had our first date on April 25, 1997 and were married one year later on that date. Now, 8 years have passed, and it just doesn't seem like it. I mean, when you spend so much time with someone you love so much, it just speeds by. I've seen Alex, our son, go from being a little boy to a young man in that time. We've welcomed Molly into the world, and now she is a feisty little 6 year with a 'tude. But it doesn't seem like that much time has passed. Looking back on how much my life has changed in this 9 years makes me wonder what my life could have been like had we not met. I was close to moving to Detroit just before I met Denise. When I met her, and looked into her eyes, I knew at the moment that she one the one I was going to spend the rest of my days with. I had found my soul-mate, the other half of me in her. She's truly my best friend and confidant. She's the one I share my dreams with and together we plan for the future. She's the one that kicks me in the butt when I need it to motivate me to make those dreams come true. And, she's the one that accepts me for who I am. Warts and all. I don't have to be perfect around her, I just have to be me. Thank you for 8 years of being Mrs. Donaldson. Thank you for sharing the last 9 years of your life with me. I will always love you, Denise.